Party-Poopers (and a Steak-Out)

Cushioning the Blow

We kicked off November with Liv and Hannah's joint birthday party at my parents' house on the first.

But Kitten and I had to stop and pick Riley up at Kassie's since she had slept over on Halloween night; and on top of that, we didn't realize until we were walking out the door that we'd never snagged a pair of birthday cards for the girls at any time in the past six weeks that we'd had the party on our radar.

The Dollar Store had a surprisingly decent selection of cards... but more importantly, they had Whoopie Cushions for $1.75 a pop!

...And, you know we grabbed a pair of those!

Then we proceeded onward to Kassie's—taking the back way, where you almost wouldn't know you were still in L'il Trenton...

I Shot the Sheriff

Then it was time to party.

I asked Liv to pose for a picture with Grandma; but she's at the age where she decided to show Aunt Sue how cool and edgy she is by ignoring the camera to make dumb faces instead.

By the time she finally gave me a decent smile, my mom's back was about to go out. But if you put these two pictures together, you get one pretty good one...

Kelly had said this would be a costume party, and Riley believed her. So, she came as Harley Quinn again... only to find that the girls were decidedly not in costume (unless their "costumes" were "three-year-old" and "five-year-old").

But all that rule-breaking must've attracted the attention of the local pigs, and soon the sheriff showed up...

I told J.D. to piss off and come back with a warrant!

Cakewalk

Pete came as Obi-wan Kenobi; and I guess Steve was... a lame-ass middle-aged schoolteacher who wears pink?

Man, he really nailed it!

And, as always, Kelly made the girls' cakes from scratch...

Here's the whole crew serenading the birthday girls...

No Time Like the Presents

Then it was time to open gifts.

I have pretty much no idea what the girls got, much less from whom; so, I'm just gonna kind of throw these pics out there without much commentary...

Whoopie Whoopsie

Then came the highlight of the party—or should I say, the farty.

You have to love the night-and-day difference in Kelly and Steve's facial expressions as Kitten handed the girls their respective cushions...

It took the girls 0.002 entire seconds to learn what Whoopie Cushions are for; and on-demand farts immediately became the highlight of their entire lives!

Here are some choice clips from the gas chamber...

But, don't worry; it wasn't like we were only bringing farts into our nieces' lives...

...We got them Adolescent Anomaly Combat Tortoises plushies so that they can bring some violence into their home as well ;)

Condolence Prizes

Then Kelly handed the younger guests their obligatory gift bags—which, when you think about it, are essentially just condolence prizes for the also-rans...

Hang a Left

Finally, we got some definitive proof that Hannah is left-handed and therefore one of the Chosen Ones^TM just like Uncle Kev, Cousin Pete, and Great Grandma Eleanor.

Here's a reference to The Matrix—which is somehow 26 years old now; so some people might not get it...

Patchwork

On Sunday the 2^nd, Kitten patched a nick in her windshield (which had happened earlier in the week on her way to work)...

You can't let these little guys fester, or they'll eventually spiderweb across your entire windshield and then you'll be driving around with people thinking your some kind of Trenton trash who can't afford a windshield repair!

See? Good as new!

U-Park and the Apocalypse

Later that evening we had new neighbors show up to move into The Egyptian's old apartment next to Rob and Nicole.

They're gaunt, and loud, and sporting dreadlocks; so I've dubbed them The Jamaicans. They showed up with a huge U-Haul truck and then left it U-Parked in a regular-sized space all afternoon and evening so that it completely bottlenecked our entire lot...

For dinner we decided to splurge for Qdoba; and when we headed up Rt. 1 to grab it, it looked like we were driving into some apocalyptic hellscape...

I told Kitten there was a good chance we'd have to battle factions of hostiles for increasingly-scarce food and resources as the planet started heading into nuclear winter...

But, when we got there, the parking lot was empty like it pretty much always is...

Power Struggle

Kitten called out with a migraine on the 3^rd; but we found out later that afternoon that the landlord had come around and left a note on everyone's doors about "follow-up inspections" to the "annual inspections" that Morrisville Borough just performed last month.

This time, they're trying to tack on even dumber rules, like "all furniture must be at least 18 inches from any walls with baseboards," and "extension cords and power strips are strictly prohibited"...

Yeah; okay.

So, as Randy Jackson might put it...

Here was the sunset over L'il Trenton that evening...

It looks like it's portending our dystopian future, where shit's about to get scarce and neighbors will be breaking into each others' apartments to get at those elusive outlets!

Pipe Dreams

On Tuesday I worked with Joe on our second project: a pair of glass, wood, and iron-pipe coffee tables that I'll probably post pictures of later in the month.

The stupid U-Haul truck was still here from the night before...

And then, when Joe and I had to run out to Home Depot, we found this guy trying to rival the Jamaicans in intellect...

Since we're on some weird sunset kick, here was the sky over Joe's house that evening...

I'm pretty sure this was the first nuke being dropped, sparking the official start of The Great Morrisville Outlet War of 2025.

Who could've predicted that Philadelphia would prove to be our safe haven in this time of turmoil?

Steak-Out!

But Paula's timing was impeccable: She was basically like,

I was more than a little curious about that espresso martini, too.

It was delicious; and, weirdly enough, it impaired my ability to take only the very next photo in focus. And then I was good again the rest of the night...

Kitten and the Molerat got their precious steaks (borderline raw, just how they like them), and I opted for a slab of lasagna with like 27 different cheeses on it...

Dinner was amazing—much better than it probably would've been if we had gone to FRID instead...

Then we all went back to Joe and Paula's and ate a bunch of doughnuts to round out the meal.

...And, guess who was still here—for well over 24 hours, at this point?

Qdoubled

Joe and I worked again on Wednesday the 5^th, but we grabbed lunch from Qdoba before we got started.

Kitten stopped by to pick me up on her way home from work that evening, and we snapped these pictures of the sunset in Joe's backyard...

Then she said she had nothing in mind for dinner, but what had I been thinking?

So? Back to Qdoba we went!

Haul it On Outta Here

When we got home with dinner, we found that the dreaded U-Haul truck was finally gone!

But the next morning, something almost as big was headed right for us: It was Ruth coming up the stairs!

Those of you who saw Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back back in 2001 will appreciate this; and the rest of you will probably be completely lost...

Look at that spectacular Halloween costume. Six days late, but she really nailed it: Jay and Silent Bob at the same time.

Stromboli for Breakfast?

On Friday the 7^th, Athennia called in sick so she could catch up on sleep.

For some odd reason, I was feeling masochistic enough to try my hand at making a breakfast stromboli.

First, I sauteed some veggies and cooked up some sausage...

Then I scrambled some eggs...

Then I rolled out the dough and covered everything in two metric tons of cheese...

Rolled it all up...

And, after what felt like seven and a half hours in the kitchen, I had one hell of a tasty breakfast in front of me...